Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Telling Being Adapted for the Big Screen

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Telling being adapted for the big screen

Bayview Films announced today that American author Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed sci-fi novel, The Telling, is being adapted for the big screen. Rekha Sharma (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Discovery) is set to star in the lead role of Sutty Dass.

The Telling novel centers on Sutty and the planet Aka, a once culturally rich world that has been utterly transformed by technology. Records of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are strictly monitored. Sutty Dass is an official observer from Earth who has learned of a group of outcasts who live in the wilderness. The group still believes in the ancient ways and still practice its lost religion — the Telling, the old faith of the Akans. Intrigued by their beliefs, Sutty joins them on a sacred pilgrimage into the mountains and into the dangerous terrain of her own heart, mind, and soul. Ursula K. Le Guin created an intricate environment in her novel, inviting us to reflect on our own complicated history and the price of progress.

The film is being written and directed by Leena Pendharker (20 Weeks, Raspberry magic). The writer-director told The Hollywood Reporter that she is “honored to bring the work of one of science fiction’s most esteemed writers to the screen especially in these times when strong female voices are needed. The Telling is a humanistic science fiction film about a woman trying to find her way in a culture overrun by technology.”

The Telling is being produced by Bayview Film founder Rizwan Virk (Knights of Badassdon, Mythica) alongside J.D. Seraphine (Sirius). Virk stated that he’s been a fan of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “science fiction and fantasy for many years,” and that his team “had been working on the script for The Telling with her over the past few years, and we were extremely saddened to hear about her recent passing.”

Virk describes The Telling as a “personal story of self-exploration” that also explores “much broader themes related to science, alien civilizations, religious freedom, and technology progress.”

Production on the adaptation is set to begin later this year and slated to hit theaters in 2019.